PLVS VLTRA

Well, the second day of institute has come to an end. To recap - on Sunday we traveled from Meriden, CT to New York City and we’re now staying in dorms at St. John’s University in Queens. The first day of institute, I have to admit, was hell - I got something like two hours of sleep and had contracted some sort of general feel-bad-and-cough-a-lot illness that’s currently bouncing around campus. I also didn’t eat breakfast, forgot my iPod and didn’t have any coffee to drink. I felt like reheated death. Fortunately today was worlds better - got much more sleep and in doing so slept off most of whatever bug I’d had, got breakfast, got coffee, and had motivational music ready for the morning bus trip (”Let’s Work” by Prince. I seem to have developed a minor fixation - apologies to Phil Collins).

Today was also far better because I had some idea about what to expect - beyond being in crap condition yesterday, the whirlwind of sessions and activities was deeply disorienting. I felt way more on top of things today, and we got started on our lesson plans. I’m really eager to have students next Monday - I think I’ll do pretty well. Of course, that could very possibly be new-teacher naivete, but even so I’m excited to face my first crashing failure if that’s the case.

Another big reason I’m feeling so positive about institute is the group of people I’m working with - my corps member advisor Mahaliel is incredibly helpful and a really cool guy. As much as I believe in the TFA mission I tend to be wary of the occasionally-excessive jargon, and he speaks to us with remarkable honesty and candor. My collaborative partner, Emily, is also fantastic - the two of us are a teaching team and will trade off lessons in the classroom throughout the summer. She’s got some teaching experience and is generally way, way better than me, but fortunately she puts up with my amateur cluelessness and I’m certainly very thankful for that.

While I am feeling pretty optimistic, I don’t mean to imply that institute isn’t hard, because it is. It’s really hard. We put in 14-hour days, we’re up early in the morning and awake late at night, we have little to no free time and the food sucks. It’ll only get harder once we have real live unpredictable students to add to the equation. The difficulty is what makes it so exhilarating, though - it’s a great feeling to look yourself in the mirror and realize you’re easily capable of far more than you’d ever guessed. I know that sounds like a motivational poster, but hey.

Perhaps the most significant development, though, it that it looks like I’ve got a job - I’m going through the hiring process to become an English teacher at Hartford Public Schools’ 9th Grade Academy starting this fall. I can’t say how excited I am about that. Kids will be standing on desks in no time.

Definitely looking forward to the weekend - it’ll mean a welcome opportunity to sleep in and do some laundry, July 4th, and hopefully seeing some friends from around the city.

Well, the trip up was quite an adventure. After a too-short visit to Columbia, I tackled most of the drive in one go. Today was the first full day of induction. A few notes:

1. For those of you who aren’t familiar with TFA terminology, induction is the pre-training welcome period that serves as a general introduction to the program and region. My corps’ induction is in Meriden, Connecticut. Our institute - the five week long period of formal training - is in New York City and begins in a week.

2. Induction thus far is a lot like college orientation - people seem to be feeling out the situation, everyone talks to everyone. Mercifully, we have not yet had to pass anything back and forth without using our hands, nor have we been made to carry greased watermelons. I think I’m safe on that count. Knock on wood.

3. The current corps members and alumni present at induction seem really cool - an interesting and remarkably varied crew that nonetheless seem profoundly and uniformly devoted to the cause.

4. My fellow newbies are a pretty impressive bunch.

I’d write more, but I really haven’t experienced all that much yet, I’m a little sleepy, and to be honest I’m distracted by the real-life murder  mystery type show on A&E. They do a good job with those.

A few notes on Connecticut itself:

1. Pretty, pretty state. Rivers, hills, old stone bridges, tons of trees. Around Atlanta, trees are merely helpful indicators of an untapped piece of real estate. Here, the cities seem relatively fixed in size - there are discrete cities and villages, and then there are trees in between and that’s it. I know that’s really not such a novel concept, but so much of the South is a never-ending sprawl of the same shiny new generic buildings repeating every five miles - I could go on, but I realize I’m already running the risk of sounding like the kid who goes on foreign study for a month and then decides to hate America. It’s not that I don’t like the South - there’s a lot about it that I really like. The natural Southern landscapes can be staggeringly beautiful. It’s just a shame that so much of the region has been devoured by rampant capitalism.

Uhm…what was I talking about again?

2. Weather is great - feels like those breezy Georgia days in the early fall. It is, however, June, which means I stand a pretty good chance of actually freezing until I die come wintertime.

3. Perhaps the most profound sense of cultural dislocation has come from the fast food places. Connecticutians (Connecticutii? Connecticutters?) are far too fond of Dunkin’ Donuts, there are White Castles instead of Krystals, and there are Tim Hortons, which sell Canadian values and I’m not sure what else.

Leaving in just a couple of hours. Road trip CD burning has officially commenced. Can’t wait to hit the road.

Well, I suppose the title isn’t entirely accurate. To be fair, I was required to create a blog about the interrelationship of social justice and sustainability for my Mass Communications class during the fall term of my senior year. However, where that blog had posts with titles like “Straw Bale Construction Offers Potential for Affordable, Energy-Efficient Housing,” this blog will be far more likely to contain posts like “OH MY GOD I AM SO UTTERLY UNPREPARED FOR THIS.”

If you’re into social justice, sustainability or the ill-documented connection between the two, I can give you the URL for that blog. If you’re interested in raw pathos and/or me colliding violently with my own limitations as a human, congrats - you’ve come to the right place!

That is, of course, a little pessimistic - if the pre-training materials are any indication, TFA will make teachers out of us, obstacles be damned. I would say that I’m excited about the program, but that doesn’t quite sum it up - on most days I’m excited. Some days I’m thrilled. But other days bring a dim sense of anxiety, maybe nostalgic reflection. Each day is a symphony of anticipation, wary confidence, careful planning, boisterous enthusiasm, self-doubt and Cheez-Its. I’ve eaten unholy amounts of Cheez-Its this summer. Like, meal-substitute amounts.

The one constant is a deep haze of introspection - trying to figure out what I have to offer as a teacher, what the coming years will require of me, how my background has shaped me, what my college years were and what I took from them… y’know, like, what it all means, man. (Cue sensitive acoustic strumming)

I’m sure, though, that even my most hard-won conclusions will be out the window the second I find myself at the front of a classroom, and that might be what I most look forward to, that inevitable moment of consuming unfamiliarity when some high schooler calls me - me, currently wearing a bathing suit as normal clothing and eating a Lunchable - “Mr.” That’ll a be a trip. I imagine it’ll feel like some huge inside joke. Psst - you realize I don’t know anything about anything, right?

I think the one thing I wanted from college, above all else, was to be made uncomfortable. (In light of that, the fact that I went to Furman seems grotesquely comical) Sure, college stretched who I was, and I applied myself in some new ways, but very, very rarely was I genuinely uncomfortable. I want experiences that don’t just challenge me intellectually, but culturally, emotionally, physically and all of the other -ally’s that escape me at the moment. (Are there more? Spatially?)

At this point, comfort is the absolute enemy. When I’m old and slow and can’t exert myself beyond reaching for my next Werther’s Original, I’m not going to wish I had taken it easier when I was young. So bring on Institute, bring on waking up at five in the morning, bring on dorms with fitful air conditioning, bring it all on. For now, I’m being aggressively, ambitiously useless - wallowing in my final days of irresponsibility. It won’t last much longer.